


maraschino red dress $8.99 at goodwill

by smallredboy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gender Angst, Gender Confusion, Questioning, Season/Series 02, Songfic, Trans Will Graham, Will Graham in a Dress, gender nonconformity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23141695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Will wears a dress in the privacy of his own home.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 65





	maraschino red dress $8.99 at goodwill

**Author's Note:**

> **trans bingo:** questioning
> 
> am i projecting my own gender angst into will? Yes. 
> 
> inspired by the song of the same name by ezra furman. 
> 
> enjoy!

He could be doing a thousand other things right now. 

He could be out fishing, he could be checking up on emails, he could be getting comfortable in bed to get some sleep in him. 

But instead, he's struggling with the fact he's wearing a dress and attempting to be comfortable in his own skin. 

He's spent hours like this, again and again. Every time it's the same routine— finding a cheap dress at Goodwill, buying it at the register while looking over his shoulder, trying his best to not be seen. The nights after he does this routine, this tradition basked in shame, always have anxiety dreams with the exact same output, each time. Him being outed; Jack finding him at Goodwill, his hands on a pretty red dress, and looking at him with disappointment so harsh it makes him break down in tears. 

He enjoys wearing dresses in the solitude of his own home. Going out to buy them is a plight, something that makes his skin feel like it's peeling off. The cashier never even looks at him— the cashiers are always too tired to ask anything or to give any judgmental looks, he knows that from working at retail when he was in college. But he still expects them to call him slurs under their breath. 

He finds a beautiful red dress, colored like a Maraschino, just for eight dollars and ninety-nine cents. He buys it and he stares at it for a long time until he manages to put it on. 

The feeling of inadequacy from a dress is long gone; the asphyxiating dysphoria is long gone. He doesn't look like a woman wearing a dress, curvy hips and chest accentuated by it… hormones and surgery have made sure he looks like a man wearing a dress. But it still makes something itch within him. 

Is he a man? Is he even a man? He's been transitioning since he was twenty, he shouldn't be asking himself this question eighteen years after the fact, and yet, here he is. 

He's never aligned himself with traditional masculinity too hard. He's always leaned toward the androgynous side of things; if it were for him, he'd prefer to frequently confuse people about his gender than to always be read as a man. But his dysphoria was so strong when he was young that he convinced himself he was just a man. Hearing about nonbinary genders now, though, makes him doubt that notion and doubt it hard. 

He wants to know himself, but it's hard to. He's trying to know himself while he's trying to catch Hannibal while trying to keep his job as normal. It's asphyxiating. 

Sometimes he dreams about Hannibal finding out. He knows Hannibal is too strange to put any true weight on it— it's not like a serial killer will turn up his nose at the sight of a man in a dress (well, most wouldn't, and one as hedonistic and ever curious as Hannibal certainly won't). If anything, he can hear a supportive comment, a  _ you look gorgeous in that _ , maybe even a snarky remark about how he needs to get him dresses better than the ones you get at Goodwill. 

He tries to ignore the part of himself that wants to think about Hannibal bringing him to someone to get the right fit for a dress. Or for Hannibal to glare down at the woman as she takes his measurements, daring her to say anything about Will. He ignores how the idea makes him elated. He's just searching for approval in the most realistic scenarios, he tells himself at an effort in psychoanalysis. 

He fails, and he fantasizes about it. But he manages to shut it down before it gets too out of hand. At least most of the time he manages to. 

The sun is going down outside as he settles on the couch, wearing his Maraschino red dress. He turns on the TV and ignores the way his whole body tells him this feels right. To defy how everyone expects him to look and act. Hell, how the doctors needed him to act. It was a charade, a long act, an  _ all the world's a stage _ of being as gender conforming as possible, as much of a  _ normal _ transsexual ss possible.  _ Be a normal man and we'll reward you with hormones. Good dog.  _

He refuses normalcy. He's never been a fan of it, always staying around it, watching through the tinted glass what it means to be normal. He tries ro empathize, to mirror what seems like normalcy, but it always comes out wrong one way or another. 

He supposes gender is another thing he attempted to mirror but ended up with the wrong lens. He just has to find the right one. There's lots of experimenting to do in between takes, in between catching criminals and flirting with death every time he goes to see Hannibal Lecter at his office. 

He knows he'll find an answer. He's really good at answers. And ever since he cleared up from the scales in his eyes, put there ever so diligently by Hannibal, he's clearer and clearer. Nitid. He can pick himself apart without much of a doubt, without much stinging. He can take himself apart and then put himself back together. He can leave himself broken and pulled apart, too, if he wants. 

He pulls himself apart as he puts the red dress on, and he leaves himself broken for as long as need be. 

  
  



End file.
